I sat in my room with my headphones on, tweaking the EQ on the freestyle, trying to get the low end to sit right without muddying the vocals. The house was quiet except for the faint sounds of Mom moving around downstairs and Gia's TV bleeding through the wall.
Rue was probably at Lexi's right now, asking her to pee in a nasal spray bottle. That's what happened in the show. Weird to call it that when you're living in it. I'll just say what I saw.
I pulled one side of the headphones off and listened. The front door opened and closed. Footsteps down the hall. Rue was back.
About thirty minutes later, she yelled from the hallway.
"Mom, I have to pee!"
I pulled my headphones off, pushed back from the desk, and walked out of my room.
"Does the whole world have to know?" I leaned against the doorframe. "Anyway, I'm hungry. You guys want anything to eat?"
Mom looked up from the kitchen counter. "A burger would be nice."
Rue, already halfway to the bathroom with the cup in her hand, called back without turning around. "Fries."
Gia didn't even look up from her phone. "A combo from In-N-Out."
"In-N-Out it is."
Gia's face lit up. "Yes." She was already grabbing her shoes.
* * *
RUE (V.O.)
My brother had this thing where he'd act annoyed about everything but then immediately do something nice. Like, pick a lane.
* * *
We walked to my car. The 350Z sat low in the driveway, catching the last of the evening light across its hood. I started it and let it idle. The exhaust valve was closed, so it just hummed, barely louder than a refrigerator.
Gia climbed in and immediately went to her phone. I watched her for a second, then pulled out of the driveway.
"You would always be honest with me, right, Gia?"
She looked up. "Of course."
"Listen to this."
I plugged my phone into the aux and hit play on "Let Me Know (I Wonder Why Freestyle)." The beat dropped first, a rolling 808 with a chopped vocal sample underneath. Then my voice came in, running over the top of it with a confidence that surprised even me. It wasn't forced, but it wasn't quite natural either, more like the sound of someone who hadn't slept enough and had been running on leanness and adrenaline.
I kept my eyes on the road but I was watching her in my peripheral. Her head started bobbing almost immediately. When the hook hit, she smiled.
The song played out. The last beat faded. She turned to me.
"Wow. That's really good." She looked genuinely surprised. "I didn't know you made songs."
"Song. Singular. I've only made one. But plenty of beats."
She stared at me for a second, like she was making a decision.
"Post it."
"What do you mean, post it?"
"Put it on SoundCloud. Post it to your Instagram. Post it." She said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
* * *
RUE (V.O.)
I didn't know my brother could rap. Which, in fairness, neither did he until like a week ago. But Gia believed in it, and if there's one person in this family whose instincts you should trust, it's the thirteen-year-old. Which says a lot about the rest of us.
* * *
While we sat in the In-N-Out drive-through waiting for our order, I did it. I uploaded the track to SoundCloud with a black cover, white text: Let Me Know. Simple. I linked it to the Boosted Jay Instagram page and posted it to my story.
Gia watched me do it, nodding like a manager who had just closed a deal.
We drove home with the windows down and the food warming our laps. Gia ate half her fries before we pulled into the driveway.
* * *
A few days passed.
I did another run for Zen. Picked up a bag, didn't ask what was in it, drove it across town, and dropped it off. The money showed up in my hand the way it always did, quick and clean, and then I was back in the car heading home.
McKay was throwing a party tonight. End of summer. Everyone was going.
Before I started getting ready, I checked SoundCloud.
One thousand plays.
Probably everyone I knew and most of the school. Still. A thousand people pressed play on something I made.
My phone buzzed. A text in the group chat from my boy Xavier, who played point guard on the basketball team.
XAVIER: Aye why didn't you tell us you made music???
RON: Yeah that shit was kinda gas ngl
I typed back: Gia forced me to post it thats the only reason its up. Yall hitting this party?
XAVIER: Nah practice tmrw. Unofficial returning players thing
RON: Same. We always got work smh
Everyone had a plan to make it out. Basketball for them. Music, maybe, for me. Hopefully they'd succeed. But it meant tonight, I was going alone.
* * *
RUE (V.O.)
The thing about Jordan and Gia is they had this whole dynamic I wasn't part of. Not in a jealous way. More like they spoke a language I never learned. The dialect of people who are actually trying.
* * *
A few hours later I was getting dressed. Black jeans, a clean white tee, a chain. I checked myself in the mirror and left it at that.
Rue was already gone. Mom was at work, pulling a late shift.
I knocked on Gia's door. She was lying in bed, scrolling her phone, the blue light washing out her face.
"Aye. Be good, alright?"
"Right," she said, not looking up.
"Lock the door behind me. I mean it."
"I know, Jordan."
I headed out. The second I cleared our street, I flipped the exhaust cutout. The 350Z woke up, that deep LS rumble bouncing off the houses and rolling down the road. I could feel the rear end get light over a bump, wanting to slide. I let it, just for a second, just enough to feel the tires catch again.
Some nights you wanted to be invisible. Tonight wasn't one of them.
* * *
RUE (V.O.)
Jordan showed up to McKay's party the way he shows up to everything. Alone, on purpose, like he's got somewhere better to be but hasn't figured out where yet.
* * *
McKay's place was already packed by the time I pulled up. Cars lined both sides of the street. Bass thudded through the walls. People spilled out onto the lawn with red cups and cigarettes, their voices overlapping into one long noise.
I parked a block down, killed the engine, and walked. Dapped up a few people on the way in. Someone I half-recognized from gym class said, "Yo, Boosted Jay, that track was hard." I nodded, kept moving.
Inside, it was exactly what I expected. Hot. Loud. The smell of cheap liquor and weed and perfume and sweat all mixed into something that wasn't quite unpleasant but wasn't good either. Music shook the walls. Bodies pressed together on the makeshift dance floor in the living room.
I found a spot on the stairs and posted up. From there I could see most of the first floor.
McKay and Cassie were sitting together in the kitchen, close, their knees touching. She said something I couldn't hear and he laughed. They were in their own world. After a while, they disappeared down the hallway toward his room.
Out by the pool, Maddy was in the water with some college-looking dude, her legs wrapped around him while the rest of the party pretended not to watch. A few kids had their phones out, filming on the low.
Damn. Sexier in person. Even from here.
I looked away before I could stare too long.
Across the yard, through the sliding glass doors, I could see Rue lying on a pool chair next to Fezco. They were sharing a joint, talking. She looked calm. As calm as Rue ever looked, anyway, which was about a six out of ten on a normal person's scale.
I hit a blunt someone passed me and leaned back against the railing.
Then the energy shifted.
I felt it before I saw it. The music didn't stop, but the voices near the kitchen got louder, tighter. People started moving, not away exactly, but rearranging, the way a crowd does when it senses something is about to happen.
Nate Jacobs was at the liquor table, shirtless, jaw clenched, radiating the kind of drunk aggression that turns a room into a cage. And standing across from him, in a pink wig and torn fishnets, was Jules.
He was in her face. Loud. Saying things I could hear even over the music. Things I won't repeat because they don't deserve the air.
Here it comes.
I knew what was about to happen. I'd seen it play out on a screen, in a dark room, in another life. But watching it in person was different. The volume was real. The fear on people's faces was real. The way Jules' hand shook when she grabbed the kitchen knife off the counter next to a cut-up lime, that was real.
The party erupted. Screams. People shoving toward the exits. Nate backed up fast, his hands out, suddenly sober.
Jules wasn't looking at him anymore. She was looking at her own arm.
She cut herself. Deep enough to bleed. The blood ran down her forearm and dripped off her fingers onto the tile.
"I'm fuckin' invincible!" she screamed.
The room went dead quiet except for the music still pumping through the speakers like nothing had happened.
She threw the knife in the sink. Walked through the crowd. Nobody touched her. The blood trailed behind her like a signature.
At the door, she turned.
"By the way, I'm Jules. And I just moved here."
I stayed on the stairs, blunt still burning between my fingers. I took a hit and exhaled slow.
Exactly like the show. Except I could smell the blood.
* * *
RUE (V.O.)
I didn't see my brother during the knife thing. But knowing Jordan, he was probably somewhere in the back, smoking, watching the whole room lose its mind, and not moving. That's his whole thing. He doesn't flinch. Which, honestly, sometimes scares me more than the people who do.
* * *
The party didn't die after that, but it changed. People talked in lower voices. The music got turned down a notch. Some left. Most stayed, because that's what teenagers do. They process trauma by pretending it didn't happen and pouring another drink.
I looked for Rue. She was gone. I figured she'd followed Jules out, which is exactly what happened in the show.
I decided to leave. On my way out, I passed through the front hall and saw Lexi sitting on the porch steps, her phone in her lap, her eyes on the street.
"Yoo, Lexi. What's up, baby?"
She turned. "Jordan." A pause. "You keep calling me that."
I looked at her. "You don't like it?"
She smiled. Didn't answer.
"What do you want?" she asked.
"Just checking on you. That was a lot in there."
"Yeah." She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "How have you been?"
"Good."
We looked at each other for a second longer than necessary. Then Cassie came out through the front door, looking for her sister.
"Lex, you ready?"
Lexi stood up, brushed off her jeans. She gave me one more look, something between a smile and a question, and then walked out with Cassie.
* * *
RUE (V.O.)
Jordan flirted with Lexi the way guys flirt when they actually like someone but don't want anyone to know, including themselves. It was painful to watch. And I say that as someone who was not there and heard about it secondhand from Lexi, who also did not know she was being flirted with.
* * *
The drive home was quiet. Exhaust valve closed. Windows up. Just the hum of the engine and the empty road.
Gia was asleep when I got in. The house was dark. I locked the front door, went upstairs, and sat at the desk.
I opened SoundCloud and started reading the comments.
East Highland got a rapper now. 🔥
Another comment read . Keep going bro.
Jordan this shit is gas.
I smiled.
Then I leaned back, opened the cabinet beside my desk, and pulled out a bottle of promethazine and a two-liter of Sprite. I cracked the seal, poured slow, watched the purple syrup sink and swirl through the clear soda like smoke underwater. Dropped a Jolly Rancher in. Let it sit.
I took a sip. The sweetness hit first, then the warmth behind it, spreading through my chest and down into my arms.
I set the cup down and started scrolling through beats.
Just another Tuesday in East Highland.
* * *
RUE (V.O.)
My brother had this theory that he was different from me. That his stuff was recreational. Manageable. That he could ride the line and never cross it.
And maybe he could.
But I had the same theory once.
And I was wrong.
END OF CHAPTER TWO
Song let me know juice wrld